What They Couldn't Give
by Navel of the Turtle Man
Summary: Two lies have poisoned the lives of Team 7, and the burden lies heavy on those who fight to reveal it. Now, divided and broken, three shinobi will have to become gods to overcome their worst nightmares. NaruHina and SakuLee with underlying SakuNaru
1. Chapter 1

Un-edited. All beta offers needed and welcomed. Mine has ditched me, and apropriately so.

Terms:

Kero-Feminine version of "Wall Head"

Fata-Shepard

Soliel-Remote village in a canyon four hundred kilometers from Suna

*

**Prolouge: Tell me a story…**

"_Kero-Fata! Kero-Fata"_

Looking up from the thick sea of white fleece, the Shepard waves to the pack of almost-toddler-children charging up the hills towards him. Though he can't yet see faces, he is able to make out four blue heads and five dingy-brown ones; four girls, five boys.

"_Bom dia!" _he calls.

The girls have eyes as wide and blue as the Shepard, while the boys blink with dark green orbs that reflect cunning and mischief. They are probably neglecting their chores for this.

"_Bom dia Kero-Fata! Will you tell us another story?"_

The Shepard smiles and leans against his staff, setting hair full of bells into a jingling frenzy. His mane is long, white-yellow against his deep brown skin—a light color against the children's almost blackened faces. He laughs. _"Depends—what do you have to trade for it?"_

The children giggle, and two girls produce thick bread, a small white fruit, and a pouch of spices. These are little things, a snack really. But it is enough to buy the Shepard's words.

"_Fine. I'll tell you a story. How about I tell you about my lady, my stary-one?"_

This is a story he has told them many times, but they never tire of hearing about his lost love and he never tires of telling them.

He pockets only half of their offering, splitting open the fruit and giving each child a few of the chewy seeds. The children surround the Shepard with glee and he leads them out from the Wind Country sun into the icy shade of the cliff he stood on. He is still watching his flock through the corner of his eye.

They settle in the cool sand, legs crossed in front of them, and he begins to weave his tale.

"_She is soft, with many curves like the walls of a canyon. But her hands are sharp, and can bruise your insides--one, two, hit! Think of her eyes as pearls--smooth and white, like stars amidst her midnight hair. She is pale too--like sunlight on quartz—and quiet as a cave." _He uses his hands to make shapes in the air, as if drawing his woman.

"_Do you miss her?"_ asks one young one.

"_Where did you leave her? In an oasis somewhere?"_

The oldest child is no more than seven or eight, and the youngest is still sucking her thumb. The Shepard's turquoise eyes dim, remembering himself at their ages, still learning the basics of how to kill someone. It's why the village children love to hear him talk—they admire his stories of young children summoning giant toads, turning into demons, and battling in honor of a green-eyed girl.

They think he makes these stories up, and he has almost convinced himself that they are right—that he was never called Naruto, and that there is nothing waiting for him in a land where water flows pleantifully.

"_Of course I miss her!"_ he exclaims, throwing his arms wide. _"But I cannot return to her—she has banished me from our home until I can prove myself worthy of her love! A true man of honor!"_

The children shriek happily, thrilled with the dramatics and he smiles. He carries on like this through seven stories, until the sun is past the half mark in the sky. He talks about when they were young--how she cheered for him when he did not notice, and later, how he fought her own cousin to restore his lady's honor. He pokes fun at himself for chasing after his green-eyed friend for so long, before giving in to a better love.

Around their mouthfuls of chewy white seeds, his audience giggles and asks a thousand questions that he has answered a thousand times. The children love his stories--always have. They say he makes the time go by when the sun is too high! Their parents would scold them for reciting these tales later, but the Shepard knows they are also greatful that he keeps the young children busy for so long.

A horn sounds in the distance and he laughs.

"Go back to the village now, little ones. I'll tell you more after the feast—the one I know you're all supposed to be helping with," he teased.

They moan and groan, but he shoos them off with his staff, smiling all the way.

As soon as he is alone, the Shepard nods to the shadows under the cliff.

"Hello, Shikamaru."

The shadows sigh, shift, and release the form of a tired young man. His hair is longer than the last time they'd met three months ago, and his is face was thinner, yellower than the Shepard remembered. But at least he is unharmed.

"How can you stand all this sand? It get's into everything!" The man shakes his sandles and a trickle of dirt escapes from between his toes.

The Shepard shrugs. "You stop tasting it after a while, but you never get used to the feel of it in your underwear," he admits. "How long have you been hiding there?"

"A couple hours. I thought the village was further, so I'd planned to move by night."

"Nah, the village is just across the canyon. There's a bridge."

"I have things for you." He pulls out a thick package of letters wrapped in a perfumed blue scarf. Normally the shadow user would be irritaited by these sappy love tokens, but whenever he comes to this place and hands out another stack, Naruto's face becomes so soft, so gentle, as if he were holding Hinata herself. It's the look a man gives a lover, not a boy, and it reminds Shika of the men they have both grown into. It reminds him of a man's needs.

"She misses me that much, huh?"

"Guess so."

A second pack of papers emerges from within Naruto's dusty robe, this one with cacti flowers pressed between each letter.

"Glad to know it's mutual."

Shikamaru's eyes bulge. Somehow the blond idiot has written more than his girlfriend—there are twice as many letters and each one is thicker than three of Hinata's.

Shika swallows, his brain trying to sift through a hundred different ways to hide this package from the ROOT guards outside Kohona. He will have to go through these letters and cut out any words that might give this location away, and the process makes him nauseous, but it is nessicary. Danzo doesn't know where Naruto is being kept, but that can change in an instant--all it takes is one slip about some rare kind of cactus, and the most powerful tailed beast in the world is for Danzo's taking.

Still, he takes the letters from Naruto's hands, and pretends that he doesn't feel blue eyes watch him tuck them away like the precious life-line they are.

Shikamaru is the only person of Kohona that Naruto has seen in a year, and it doesn't surprise him when the blond asks him to stay and talk a little longer. Shika has another five or ten minutes to spare before the dust storm predicted by Gaara makes it impossible to return to Suna by dusk tomorrow.

He wonders if he can really spare that time, if Temari will kill him for being late, but he hear's the desperation in Naruto's "Wait! Rest a little, would you? Pull up a seat and tell me how everyone's doing."

So he sits, and tells his comrad about the reminents of Team Seven. He talks about Kakashi's growing shoulder pains and paranoia, from being bent over paperwork and being attacked by ROOT respectively. He talks about Sai's difficulty with fighting on their side, his conflicts between the ROOT conditioning and his urge to take Danzo down. He talks about the strain between Kohona and the other villages--how this "Civil Unrest" has caused them to loose face with their allies and loose missions to their rivals. He talks of Kiba's increased agression, Chouji's abrupt weight loss, Hinata's adaptation of the Hyuuga "stone face," and Tenten's growing drinking problem.

He does not talk about how often he tries to leave home to go to Suna, and escape the madness of war in Temari's arms. He does not talk about how Shino lost an arm last month in a battle with three ROOT agents. He does not talk about the rumors that Sasuke is in the desert.

He almost gets away with not talking about Sakura, but Naruto will not let him escape.

"How is Sakura-chan?" he asks, after Shika has lapsed into quiet.

The brunet sighs.

"She's working too hard," he begins. "Lee's been gone for a few months now on some mission to Rain. No word from him or the other operatives who went and no pre-set day of return for anyone, so we don't know when to worry. She's taking it kinda hard."

"How hard?" Naruto wants to know.

"Ino says she's training like Lee did after the Chunnin Exams. She sparrs like she's posessed, and using excuses to work extra shifts in the Reconstruction Teams. Sakura calls it endurance training, but Ino calls it suicidal. Seventeen hours without breaks just moving rubble the size of houses, and then she only has five or six hours of sleep until her next shift. And I heard from Shizune that she's schedualed to take back-to-back A Class missions in a few weeks. Requested it personally from Kakashi."

"And he didn't talk her out of it?!" Naruto looks utterly horrified, and yet the signs of defeat are in his eyes. There is no rage behind his words, because some part of him knows that Sakura's life is not part of his problems right now.

All Naruto is supposed to do out here is keep quiet and keep safe, and Shika knows it must be killing him. He imagines that Naruto would be sporting discoloration under his eyes from lack of sleep if Kyuubi wasn't fixing everything.

"I asked that myself. Kakashi says she's testing herself, trying to figure out where her limits and strengths are so she can improve on them. He says that without a teacher, she's moving blindly through her training; that she's trying to give herself direction. Shizune can only teach her to be a good doctor, which is why she stopped taking shifts at the hospital. There's nothing there for her to learn anymore."

The shadow user stopped and smirked dully to himself.

"I guess she's trying to learn like you did when we were young. You tried again and again and had to learn from your mistakes without anyone there to point them out, right?"

Naruto shrugs. "I guess. I never really thought about it, but yeah. I guess I was shooting blind myself back then. And now too."

Casting their faces to the clouds, the two men go quiet, and the looks on their faces say that they are both remembering the years behind them.

"I want to go home, Shikamaru. I want to be a ninja again."

Shikamaru sighs again and shakes his head. "I know Naruto, but this is--"

"--For our own good, mine _and_ the village's," he finishes. "I know. But I still miss it."

"Try to relax. I know you want to go home and help, but almost everyone at home would give anything to be here right now."

"In a desert, with sand up their ass?"

"No. In a place where the biggest battle is a skirmish with the tribe next door over a water hole. These people don't know war. They don't know suspicion and how to distrust their neighbor. Try to enjoy this place. Trust me--it's a paradise by our standards."

*

When the sun goes down, a deep chill overtakes the desert. The sand becomes fragments of ice that pelt Naruto as he wanders home through the wind, alone. He bipasses the festivities at the center of the village, where firelight and noise and cooking smells have gathered. Instead, he comes to a small hut--no bigger or better than a shack, really--and slips inside where a small bowl of mud and water wait.

The mud is to scrub his skin and hair, mixed with salts and aloe, which makes a dirty paste that keeps the germs and stink away. It will matt his hair, keeping it clean, stiff, and out of his face when the wind kicks up. Eventually, this will create dreadlocks, which might be dyed or decorated, if he ever felt so inclined.

The water is to dip a tiny sponge into, to scrub away the mud, while he drinks the rest.

There are pots with dried foods, and a stack of clean clothes, a mat, a blanket, weapons, and nothing else.

There are no painted walls, decorative blankets and rugs, or fire pits for parties. This is not a home, by the Soliel standards, or his.

Naruto will clean himself, eat, drink, and lay down for the night, but he will not fall asleep until the moon is nearly set.

This is not his home.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I have nothing against Sakura, but this story will not be kind to anyone, and I'm going to make her EARN whatever happiness I give her, so don't get on my case about Sakura-bashing or favoring. Okay guys and gals? Also, this is the time when you'll see a change in tenses, so yes, I know Naruto's was in present and this is in past, I did it that way on purpose.

Boys beware: Don't freak out—you know how romantic Sakura is and I'm down playing the NaruHina shit by a LOT. And yes, this chapter is very MUSHY! Oooh…scary. If you're one of those mocho guys (or girls) who denies that there is such a thing as romance, I ask you here and now to suck it up. Besides, in the next chapter, you get Sasuke gutting someone.

Enjoy!

*

Chapter One: Eyes Down

"Shit! Splinters, splinters everywhere! Why the hell am _I_ the one doing the heavy lifting?! I'm a delicate blossom!"

"Oh, shut up, Ino-pig! You call yourself a kunoichi, you ought to act like one."

With a mighty shove and heave, Sakura tossed the shattered rafter of a fallen roof over her shoulder. The wood bounced and rolled twice before coming to settle in the mammoth pile of debris behind her. All around them were the bits and pieces of a once quiet neighborhood, now set to ruin under the summer sun and rain.

"Ow!" sucking at the place on her wrist where another splinter had stuck, Ino mumbled, "Kunoichi I am. Construction worker I am not."

Sakura just shook her head as Kurenai laughed, patting Ino's shoulder sweetly. The older woman seemed compelled to learn to like her late husband's students, but Sakura was too used to Ino to listen anymore. As children, she'd learned that Ino would whine until she was blue in the face, but do what was needed of her anyways. Complaining just seemed to make her feel better as she did it.

"Don't worry girls," said Kurenai. "I've got lunch for us in an hour."

As if on cue, a rumble sounded from Sakura's stomach, but it didn't stop her from tossing another massive scrap of drywall over her head. She'd learned well the worth of ignoring her body's signals in favor of working even harder. She'd learned to hold her water for upwards of three and a half hours, go a whole day on one meal, and make her body train its way into numbness.

Lee had taught her that method six months ago, before his mission. He still wasn't back yet, but she'd be damned proud of herself if she could ignore the need for sleep like he could by his return.

Even Kakashi had admitted he was impressed, and the praise from her teacher-cum-kage was only marred because it didn't come from Tsunade herself.

According to Shikamaru, there was still no word from Naruto of her waking.

With a grunt, Sakura ripped roughly half a living room free from the abandoned house and threw it perhaps a little too hard behind her. Ino winced and Kurenai stared but they were ignored as the pink-haired girl fumed.

Six years and Tsunade was _still_ out like a light, stuck in some glass coffin like Snow White in the middle of the desert! Why they didn't pull the plug only Kamis knew, but...god...she wanted her teacher back.

She wanted the Gondaime to wear her silly white robes and smile when Naruto stole the hat and shouted about how he was going to wear it next.

And speaking of Naruto...

Trying to be subtle, Sakura shot a quick look towards the Hyuuga complex; one of the only areas that did not show the ravages of war. At least not to the outside.

It would take a moron to miss the raccoon rings setting in around Hinata's eyes and the way she fiddled with the jagged blue stone set into her engagement band, or how often her eyes would drift towards the west--towards Suna--during debriefings. Maybe the pink haired girl would have offered support, but Hinata had political problems, and Sakura had her own loved ones to miss.

All Kohona wanted their blonds home again, making life stronger and bright.

But in six years that hadn't happened yet, and for as long as Tsunade slept and Danzo fought to rule, Sakura couldn't see life getting any better any time soon.

*

Ten hours later, alone and exhausted, Sakura stumbled through the rubble of Kohona towards the apartment she'd called home for the past seven months. She tried to keep her gaze tied to the ground, but every now and then green eyes would wander up, to the crumbling buildings around her.

Holes the size of houses had been knocked into the sides of apartment buildings, exposing abandoned homes still full of belongings. There was no glass in the windows anymore, nor pottery, china, or porcelain, save what scraps were on the ground. Wooden boards were nailed up to ward off the winter cold but most had been taken down for now, beckoning any breeze that would come to cool the houses. Every here and there the skyline was colored by laundry hung to dry on fallen power cables and telephone lines that no longer worked.

Sakura had spent a year's worth of days ripping her rotting city apart with the hope that she would see it built up anew. But when you spend a year's worth of nights lying in your bed with war nightmares, it was hard not to wake up and think of skeletons when you looked at the buildings outside.

She wanted Lee home so she could show her how strong she was getting. She wanted Naruto home so Hinata would stop looking so damn sad. She wanted Tsunade home so the Gondaime could put their village back together. She wanted proof that Sasuke was dead so she could go to sleep without nightmares of Sharingans that woke her in a cold sweat.

War had come and gone and come _back_ and _stayed_ with this village, and it was showing everywhere.

_This was our home..._

*

When the sun came up, Sakura was already on one of the practice fields. There was the sound of thunder as her hands struck stone, again and again, leaving bloody marks on the fragments that she knocked away. The sounds of their falling made vibrations, big ones, which shook her feet.

Sakura has been punching this boulder for an hour before dawn. Two hours before that, she'd been running laps from the demolished Hokage mountainside down through the town, and back to Lee's empty apartment.

There was a feeling as she ran--beyond the adrenalin, the sweat, the burning, empty acids' taste on her tongue—that if she ran fast enough and hard enough, there would be someone in that apartment the next time she stepped onto the front step and rang the bell, marking off another lap.

Sakura ran ten laps that way, then turned on her heal and slow jogged her way down to the training fields. Here, she would locate a large boulder--one of many lying around under the side of the Kage monument--and strike it with every ounce of her not unsubstantial strength.

When she was done here, Sakura would find some breakfast at Ino and Chouji's place. There, she would have to say "hello" and "I'm fine" and "Ino, you worry too much." This would be the extent of her human contact for the weekend.

Then she would wander into the Hokage library--what remained of it--and study. She would pull every scroll that caught her attention, peruse a few on the same subject before drifting off on some other tangent. She will make notes and observations like a scientist, and consider experiment designs. This would take up the rest of her morning, and if she remembered lunch, she would have it at home. She wouldn't even bother to check out the scrolls that she wanted, because the guards knew her as the Hokage's student, and the scariest woman in Kohona, who returned the scrolls at her own leisure.

When she finished with lunch, Sakura would begin a few new experiments, a few new ideas, a few new tricks and jutsu designs. She would work past dinner, deep into the night, long after anyone else would be awake.

In the morning, the process would reverse, ending in a training session that made her pass out and opening with more work, but there would still be running, and a general lack of Lee, and she supposed that would have to do for now.

This was how she spent her weekends off.

*

_Eight months before..._

_It must have been two or three months after her first shift at in the Reconstruction Team when Sakura went out to lunch with Lee. They'd been working their way through the rubble, sorting—doors to the left, window frames in that pile, toilets over there. They carved paths as they went for the villagers to use, since this particular line was directly between the market and some of the housing areas. _

_It was one of the hottest days of the summer, the sun at its peak of intensity at about one-thirty that afternoon, and none of the team had taken a lunch break. Sakura had stripped down to her shorts and sports bra, not caring who ogled her or how badly her fair skin might be burnt. Most of the others had followed her lead, and soon, she was working in a field of dirt, rubble, and half naked men and women. _

_It was through this that Sakura had the benefit of eyeing the men, and she surprised herself when she realized she'd been starring at one (as Ino phrased it) "Finely Lined Male" in particular. She supposed it wasn't her fault that she hadn't noticed any of those lines in the Chunnin Exams; between worrying over his ability to walk again and wondering who in their right mind dresses in green spandex, there hadn't been any real opportunity to admire how fit Lee was. _

_It was the first time she noticed the exact way his arms flexed, the travel of sweat down his back, the pleasant focus on his face..._

_Needless to say, by the time the next team came to relieve them, Sakura was feeling hot from more than just the heat. _

_She'd just been about to head to Ichiraku's for a late (and fast) lunch, eyes locked on the ground, when she ran headlong into (what felt like) a warm rock. _

_"Ow..." she muttered rubbing her forehead. _

_"Ah, Sakura-chan! I'm so sorry! Are you hurt?"_

_"Uh..." Looking up, she found herself almost nose to nose with a pair of bug-eyes. "...Hello Lee."_

_"Why were you starring at the ground, Sakura-chan? It's such a pretty day!"_

_"Uh...well...yeah. I guess it is, but I just..." she paused, wondering how she should say this, "I just don't like looking too closely at the village anymore. Not until it's healed a little more, you know?"_

_"Why though?! The village is thriving like a rose against weeds! We have a strong, healthy destiny before us, and these wounds will make us stronger! They are proud battle scars!"_

_She chose to ignore the sudden "nice guy" pose and the random teeth sparkles that came with it._

_"I'm glad you're so optimistic about things, but do you really think the village will be able to heal after a war with Akatsuki and Rain, _and_ a Civil War? Until Tsunade-sama returns or..._dies_, we will never be rid of Danzo or those who oppose his ascent. And as long as we are in conflict, we will never have a chance to heal." She sighed. "It's like watching a soldier that comes home from the war wounded and gets infected before he's even gotten his stitches. They never get a break, and as soon as you turn your back, something else is going wrong. Eventually, the body's just got to give in." She gestured at a toppled bakery. "Without an end to the conflict, Kohona will collapse."_

_Lee didn't say anything. He only looked at her with a considering expression. Then he smiled and took her hand. "You must come to lunch with me! I can cook something for you!"_

_"I...Lee...uhhhhh...." so startled was she by his sudden change of pace, she didn't say anything as he took her hand. _

"_I insist! I have a curry recipe designed to make anyone forget any woe! I promise you'll be smiling when you go home!" _

"…_Wait a minute, I don't think…Lee…"_

_But he wasn't letting go, and with a smile and a gentle hand, he hauled Sakura to the tiny shack-town he'd been sleeping in. _

_Lee's hut was made of tin walls, a cot, and a lamp, like all the others were, but he'd managed to drag in the remains of a table and cooking supplies. He had rations stored in a box under it, next to his weights. As Sakura ducked in she noticed that he'd used a layer of broken bricks to lift the roof of his hut and accommodate his six and a half feet of gangly limbs. There was a colorful piece of carpet tossed over the floor like a rug and a board had been stuffed under the cloth of the cot to give it a little more support. _

_She had to admit herself impressed. Whereas most people just used the shacks as storage for whatever personal effects they could salvage, Lee had put forth the effort it took to make a home. _

_Sitting her down on the cot, he whipped out a few of the rice rations and a small box of curry mix and began setting up a small fire in one of his pots. She supposed he must have gotten the hang of cooking without a stove if the thin, pot-bottom-shaped burn marks on the table said anything. _

_While she didn't think the curry was much when it was served, she had to admit that between Lee's loud commentary about his team and his clumsy cooking antics, Sakura _was_ smiling when she finished her meal. Somehow, she managed to got caught up in the conversation, Lee's voice seemed to be infectious, and though they were finished with their meals by late afternoon, it wasn't until long after the sun went down that she made to leave._

_And it didn't even end there! _

_As the "civilrous gentleman" that he swore himself to be, of course he had to escort her home. They talked the whole way there, and it wasn't until the next day that she realized that he'd made her laugh more times in one afternoon than she had in three months. _

_As she came to the front of her own shelter, she gave him a warm smile and surprised herself by saying, "Thank you for lunch Lee. I think your curry worked quite well. I fell much more optimistic about tomorrow."_

"_I'm so glad Sakura-chan! Please let me cook for you again sometime when you are feeling sad! I have many more recipies to envigorate the spirit!"_

_She actually laughed at the nice guy pose this time, and nodded. "I'd love that. Maybe tomorrow?"_

_Here, he blushed and nodded rapidly. "Hai! As often as you would like Sakura-chan!"_

*

Sakura woke on the seventh month of Lee's absence with that memory on the edges of her dream, and she smiled thinly. They'd been eating lunch every day since that first afternoon, laughing and talking, through lunch, into their afternoon duties, and sometimes for so long that they would find a chance to eat dinner together as well.

She found he had a thousand stories to tell about his and his team's early years, about his friends' personalities and quirks. He would discuss training techniques with an eye on anatomy, and they would discuss the limits of the human body.

Some days he would help her train, instructing her in tai-justu styles that best suited her, or with her weight training, which reduced the amount of chakra she had to waste on blows. In return, she would give him massages targeted at pressure points to leave him limp as a noodle on his couch.

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that she was in love with him by the time he left.

Moving into her new place had been a lonely, isolating experience, and sometimes she wondered if Lee had come back yet, only he hadn't visited because he didn't know where her new place was.

Sakura spent another three months this way before Lee came home.

*

It began raining during her spar with Neji, the day that Lee came home.

She was enjoying the challenge—they were both skilled in close combat but there was a trade off in their styles—she as a medic knew all his body's weak points—muscles and pressure points and delicate tendons—and could deliver a greater scope of damage with each blow. On the other hand, she was not as much an expert as Neji, who, with his Gentle Fist and Byakuugan, could end the fight much quicker than her, when given the opertunity. But she was getting faster, and her spars with him were lasting longer.

She had just twisted her head aside to avoid an ending blow from his fingers when the first round of thunder began. In unison, the two shinobi looked up, earning them facials of rainwater. In moments, all the heavens had opened up and muddied the earth with enormous drops.

Neji stepped out of his attacking pose and nodded to Sakura.

"I believe this would be the time to end our exercise for today, Haruno-san."

"Not yet! I swear I've almost got you beat!"

Neji smirked, a brow lifting over one white eye.

"Really? You think so? Well, I will not dispute your claims just yet, Haruno-san, but our challenge will have to wait until tomorrow. I must check that the repairs to the complex are holding and that Hinata-sama is not still practicing out in the rain. I think it likely she will have forgotten she is wearing white garments today."

Sakura laughed and they bowed to each other before Neji took his leave.

With a wet glove shielding her face, Sakura looked into the storm and sighed. It wasn't going to let up anytime soon. She might as well do some laps instead.

Pulling the hood of her vest over her head to keep the rain out of her face, Sakura lept into a quick jog, heading first to the Hokage Mountain, then spinning on her heel when she touched what remained of the Yondaime's nose.

As she pressed Lee's doorbell, she took a moment to breathe, enjoying the rhythm of the rain on the tin awning over her head.

She looked out on the neighborhood with a slight smile—it was one of the few completed, and one she'd helped clear the way for. The buildings were only three stories each and two suites wide, all made with mis-matched windows and doors salvaged from buildings before them. Some even had windows made from different colored glass, kept together with glue, so they looked like the stained glass ones in churches. Others had flower pots made in the same way, so the whole street looked like a little motley row.

When the door behind her began to open, Sakura turned with an apology already on her lips for whatever neighbor had answered Lee's doorbell.

She was not expecting to find Lee himself.

"Sakura-chan?"

"O…oh…o…"

"Sakura-chan, why are you all wet? Did you get caught in the rain?"

Unsure of what to say, all Sakura could do was point and stare at the wide bandages across his chest.

"…Y-you got h-hurt!" she managed. Mentally, she smacked herself. Kami! She was starting to sound like Hinata.

Lee touched his bandages and smiled. "Ah…yes…I was on a long mission. These things happen." He shrugged as if it were nothing, but the medical half of Sakura's brain was going a million miles a second with possible injuries that might have caused such damage.

"Let me see it!" she demanded and pushed him inside, fingers already at his bandages. "Who was your medic? Was it Mukatsu? Don't let anyone tell you she's a real medic. She doesn't know a thing about stitches, or sutures. Always ask for me or Yuyue. He actually understands the difference between a kunai and a scalpel. How deep was the wound—did they tell you? Were you bleeding for long? Did they give you the tetnus shot and or antibiotics? What was the wound from, combat or jutsu? Have you—"

"Sakura-chan, PLEASE! Calm down."

It took her a moment for her eyes to focus. Her left hand was in Lee's and her right wrist was being gripped by his, to stop her from pulling any more of the bandages away. There was a hint of gauze under her fingers, and there were already stains of red through the final layer of white bandages, most of which were pooled on the floor of the hallway.

"You should be in a _hospital_!" she hissed.

"I have been there, and I have no reason to return." He soothed. His thumb made circles on her wrist and she tried to focus on that as she worked to keep her tears at bay. Without words, he led her up the stairs and through the door of his apartment. Apartment sixteen.

The place was sparcely furnished, leaving a wide space in the center of his living room for practice mats to be laid out, lined with impossibly huge weights. He told her once that the floors in this building were too thin to stack them on top of each other without the floor giving out under the combined pressure, especially when he added his arm and leg sets.

"Please, sit down," he offered, and when they sat, the entire couch groaned.

"You're still wearing your weights? But you're injured!"

"They don't even bother me anymore Sakura-chan. I feel naked without them. It will only be a pain when Gai-sensei tells me to move on to heavier ones, and one day I fall through the floor into my neighbors' kitchen!" He teases her, but she is still pulling at his bandages, still wanting to see what went wrong.

"Can you tell me anything about the mission? What injured you? _Who_? Where have you _been_?"

"You know I can't tell you that Sakura-chan. But I promise I was taken care of, and you do not have to worry. Now please, enough about my wound. Tell me—"

"_Why won't you let me see it?!"_

Her outburst surprised him, but not enough to silence him. "I'd rather not flex my mistakes in front of you."

"What mistakes?! You've been hurt on a ridiculously long mission! What were you even doing out there?"

He sighed. "I can't tell you everything, but sufficed to say that things are moving violently in the West, and I screwed up enough to get hurt. I may be able to go back, but likely I blew my cover too much to rebuild. I just hope the others can keep their distance from my name."

"How badly could you have screwed up?"

Lee rubbed his face. Somehow, he knew she wasn't going to put this down. "I _really _shouldn't tell you this…"

"Do it anyways."

"Sakura-chan…" he whined.

"Rock Lee, you tell me how you got hurt, or I'll burn every training jumpsuit you own."

"…It's really stupid."

"That's not why you're evading me."

"What other reason would I have?" He was trying to keep a straight face, but failing to keep his feet from fidgeting.

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

"Sakura…please don't ask me about this mission. I can't lie to you that well and you really shouldn't know about this. So for my sake, would you please drop it?"

Her face was a stone, and he put his head in his hands. Anything not to look at her.

"I was supposed to be confronting a mercenary and escort him to a target. Leaf sent me to identify the target and find out why another village would want him dead. When I confronted the mercenary, I…reacted _badly_. He figured me out, wounded me, and blew my cover with the group. I ran."

"Who was it?" Sakura asked, but of course, she already knew.

"He called himself 'Hawk,' but, Sakura-chan…Sasuke's back."


End file.
